Follow Us:

One interesting sidelight to the hard-fought 21st CD primary in which Paul Tonko defeated Tracey Brooks and three other Democrats were some of the gender-targeted mailings the Brooks campaign used.
Over the last several days I heard from several people who said they received Brooks mailers pointing out that Tonko had in previous years as an assemblyman received a high rating from the National Rifle Association.

The thing was, the mailings were addressed to women in given households, even though there were males and female Democrats alike at those addresses.
A lot of campaigns these days target their mailings and I’m told this was part of an effort to seperate Brooks, the only female in the primary race, from the pack.

One wonders though, if the impact was blunted by the vice presidential nomination of Sarah Palin, recently depicted on Newsweek’s cover with a shotgun slung over her shoulder.

Obviously the appeal of Palin, an Alaska Republican, is different from that of a Northeastern Democrat, and it’s hard to imagine that such a mailing could swing a primary one way or another.

But the two women and their approach to the gun issue — at least in terms of the image they project — does say alot about the diversity that exists on this issue.

About Capitol Confidential

Capitol Confidential gathers the best coverage of New York politics and puts it all together. Each section - Capitol, The State Worker, New York on the Potomac, and Voices - represents a unique facet of the political scene. The Capitol section features coverage from the Times Union Capitol bureau. The State Worker is dedicated to state worker issues. New York on the Potomac offers news of interest to New Yorkers from Washington. And Voices features the best of everything else, pointing you to columnists and bloggers from across the Web.